Hey august55433 I accept the debate and look forward to it. I'm going to jump right into this one by stating my opinion which is as followed: Welfare is necessary because even though some people may take advantage of the system, it is much better than having more people on the streets and homeless.

Alright, so I believe that welfare should not be apart of society. My opponent says that it keeps people off the streets. He also said that not many people abuse it. I disagree with that statement. Lets run some numbers to find out.

According to the 2010 US Census Bureau findings, there are 114.8 Million families in the US. With 34.2% of US families on welfare". This means that approximately 39.3 Million homes receive monthly welfare benefits. The Federal government spent $451.9 Billion in 2012 on welfare expenditures. This averages out to roughly $11,500 annually per family or $958 per family per month.

If the fraud rate is only 2%-3%, how much money could it really be costing us? That is about 1.2 million families are illegally receiving welfare benefits. At the average rate of $11,500 per year, this is costing the tax payers about $13.5 billion per year!

Now just on to add to that list of facts, I just want say that having a safety net makes people lazy. If I am not working and I get free money from the government, I would never work again! Even if it is a small amount, I can still live off of it without working a day in my life. How is that fair to the guy who works 12 hours a day to feed his family? Then you have this other man who is sitting on the couch watching TV doing nothing.

My opponent said in the comment section "and if those sad individuals want to live off of just off of welfare and have a boring life then they can and I could care less." Really? You could care less? People do live of welfare and it's sick. What you could care less about is costing our country $13.5 billion dollars a year. So next time, you should think about what your saying before you engage in a topical discussion.

It used to be there were charities that took care of poor folks. And they were few. Until government put their little pinkies in it. Then it exploded into what we have today. A welfare state.PRO said that if we did not have welfare there would be people living in the streets. We have that with welfare. And all the trillions of dollars wasted on Johnson's great society programs has just about collapsed America. We have gone over the cliff financially, just haven't hit bottom yet.

Reasons for voting decision: The resolution is normative and hence the burden of proof is shared. Pro made a couple of arguments which were subsequently rebutted by Con. Con rightly pointed out that welfare schemes are sometimes victims of fraud, and gave quantitative evidence of the true cost of the data. Con also rightly pointed out that welfare schemes create a disincentive in people to work. These were not refuted because Pro forfeited his final rounds. I am awarding neither S&G but I want to remind Con that its spelt "forfeited". I am giving Con sources, but Con should remember to post links to the sources in the future, so that data cited as evidence can be verified by his/her opponent and the voters.